


The Things Left Unsaid

by Charl_Meister94



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies, Gen, Mutually Unrequited, Post-Canon, Post-デュラララ!!×２ 結 | Durarara!!x2 Ketsu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27172981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charl_Meister94/pseuds/Charl_Meister94
Summary: Could hatred be rooted in something more than just a simple rivalry? After their final battle, Shizuo should have found peace and Izaya was left to find new meaning for himself in the aftermath. But things aren't so simple and the two may be tethered more than they want to accept.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo & Orihara Izaya
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Things Left Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't my first time writing something for the Drrr! fandom, but it is my first time writing something that isn't overtly shipping Shizaya. I wanted to try going for the more ambiguous tone which underlies Shizuo's and Izaya's relationship; the reason the two of them can't seem to get rid of each other. It's also my first time writing something so serious. This was a gift to my friend and I thought I would post it.
> 
> I hope you can enjoy :)

It’s said that luck favored the prepared. But what was the use of preparation, when life was best lived at its precarious edge? Dangling above each vicissitude like wormholes, eagerly waiting to suck each unassuming victim within its jaws, to spit them out into an unexpected end. That’s how Izaya had lived most of his life, expertly riding each jostling gust, landing graciously on his feet when he was violently belched from the underbelly. But perhaps he’d taken too many things for granted. Had danced around death too long to notice the flickering gleam of a dying spotlight.  
  


The world was no longer his stage. The seats were emptied of all spectators. The curtains were drawn. Had fallen at his feet. Or was he being too dramatic? Eyes, the color of cunning scarlet, blinked down at the navy blanket covering his legs. Limbs he’d never looked at properly – couldn’t bring himself to – since the incident.  
  


But each time he saw them, unmoving beneath the fabric, he grabbed at them. As he did now. He squeezed the meager flesh of his thighs between his slender fingers, until he was sure bone crushed into bone with harsh vengeance. Yet, there was no heat screaming up from them. The synapses had frayed. Withered vines untethering themselves to rot. That’s how Izaya imagined them.  
  


He scoffed to himself and closed his eyes. Tight. Why was he still within this wretched dream? Had Shizu-chan knocked his brains loose again? Knocked him out cold with those brutish, gorilla fists? He had to still be suffering the delusions of a concussion. His real body was fine, he knew that. But he was still at the mercy of this overactive phantasmagoria. Like Alice, though this was far less thrilling.  
  


Behind him, three knocks sounded at the door. Izaya didn’t open his eyes. The door slid back. Gentle footfalls shuffled in and the silence was so grating, like the weight of a breath anxiously held within a trembling chest, that Izaya couldn’t ignore it any longer.  
  


“What do you want?”  
  


There was more shuffling, then the polite clearing of a throat, “Orihara-san, you have a visitor.”  
  


Izaya opened his eyes. His hands fell over the handles of the wheelchair. With practiced motions, he maneuvered himself to face the nurse. She was a portly woman with a sympathetic smile behind her mask, large brown eyes set in a mirthful squint. She held a clipboard at her side and regarded Izaya with motherly concern.  
  


“Are you feeling up to it? A visitor?” she clarified.  
  


The raven head guessed he could play along with this lucid dream a little while longer. There was nothing better to do. He nodded, lips tented to a wide grin.  
  


“Did I have to wait this long for someone to come? Even in this state, my friends have no sympathy,” he tsked, “but I’m not awful as they are. Send them in.” He gestured toward the door, as if beckoning whomever stood on the other side to enter.  
  


The woman returned a wan smile, “I’ll do just that.” She stepped out of the room. There was a slight clenching of dread in Izaya’s chest, but then the flash of a white lab coat neutralized the his stiffening shoulders.  
  


“This is a surprise,” he chirped in greeting, watching his friend’s somber face assess the barren room. “Where’s your headless girlfriend? Last time, you two were on a romantic getaway. I thought you’d be more stuck together by now.”  
  


Shinra pouted, caught by the cherished memory, “That was over a year ago, Izaya. More importantly, has no-one else came to see you?”  
  


“Hello to you too, Shinra!” Izaya sighed loudly, “Even in my dreams you’re so cold.” In Izaya’s perfect world, what he often conjured, was one where his friends were a bit more forbearing and attentive. Where everyone cared for him almost as greatly as how he loved other humans.  
  


His friend squinted at him through his thick, round glasses, “Even in your dreams?” he parroted, questioning cadence as slow as his steps forward, “Izaya, you—”  
  


“I wonder how long I have to be in this thing?” He stretched his hands above his head, “It’s not really my style. I don’t care for practical jokes, but I guess even my own brain has it out for me.”  
  


Shinra said nothing further, only watched his friend with a near pitiable expression that made Izaya turn away from him, resolutely fixing his gaze out the window.  
  


“Izaya, did anyone else come?”  
  


“Why do you keep asking me that?” There was no teasing lilt to hide the snappish bite of his words. In most of Izaya’s dreams, everyone appeared in some way: Kadota, Namie, his twin sisters, Shinra, Shizu-chan. Shizu-chan…  
  


“I don’t want anyone soaking my clothes and bed in tears, Shinra. It’s depressing. No-one is allowed to see me until my grand debut back into the world!” His arms spread wide with the caliber of an actor opening himself to thunderous applause. He finally pivoted to face the young doctor.  
  


“You’re the only one who gets to see me like this because it’s not your first time. Namie, too. She was being a bit too fussy so I told her not to come back.” He waved his hand about dismissively, voice smooth and unaffected. The truth was, Namie never came. She had sent a long-winded letter with only one line of concern for his health. The rest had been paragraphs upon paragraphs about her brother returning home for a visit. Izaya had tasted vomit at the back of his throat halfway through it and had crumpled the paper, tossing it in the wastebin.  
  


“I see…” Shinra fiddled with his glasses then sighed, “It took me awhile to find you. I was sure _he’d_ have found you first.”  
  


Izaya flinched knowingly, hands gripping the arms of his wheelchair. “The entire point of coming here was so I wouldn’t be found. And that…protozoan can’t be bothered to find what’s not directly in front of him. How did you even know I was here?” Izaya didn’t look up, instead blindly focused on the varnished wood flooring.  
  


“Namie. No-one else knows where you are.”  
  


Izaya smiled, finally lifting his head, “I bet Ikebukuro’s boring now.”  
  


Shinra tilted his head, right hand reaching up into his hair, ruffling the thick strands, “It’s…different. Celty and I are taking our relationship to the next level.” And just like that, he was grinning from ear to ear, “Now, she’s not even scared to share a bath with me,” he gushed. “Sharing a bath together…after four years of being together. She doesn’t cower or smack me from looking at her!” It was comical the way his cheeks flushed to the color of ripe peaches, hands wrapping around himself as his body wormed about in a disgusting but amusing undulation.  
  


Izaya’s eyes glinted like ruby’s, serpentine smile curling his lips, “Oh? Soon you’ll be telling me she finally opened you up to pegging! Now that’s a whole new dimension of love, Shinra.”  
  


The raven head expected his friend to reprimand him for such a shameful, forbidden thought. But instead, his friend fidgeted and refused to look him in the eyes. Izaya’s mouth fell open.  
  


“Shinra...you—”  
  


“Well!” Shinra screeched, “Good to know you’re doing well, Izaya! I was worried for absolutely nothing! I bet you’ll be recovering just fine. See you around!” He zipped out the door, slamming the door back in place. Izaya stared at the empty spot left behind, mouth relaxing to a more natural smile.  
  


He guessed even within dreams, time kept flowing for everyone else. But he would remain frozen in this place for a while longer. Maneuvering his wheelchair with little difficulty, he rolled himself from the room into the sterile hallway of the hospital. The walls were a dreary wash of greys and pale blues; Izaya didn’t even have to strain his vision to see the melancholy dragging itself behind the other patients roaming the corridor.  
  


One nurse said he looked better this morning. Another asked if he was going outside, he said yeah; his room was a bit too stuffy and plain. He pushed himself to the elevator. He knew none of these people, yet their faces bore a sense of familiarity. His mouth stretched easily around beguiling smiles at the random few who acknowledged him.  
  


Inside the elevator, his finger already knew which floor button to press, and then he was outside pushing down the smooth, meandering walkway on muscle memory. The surrounding area was something straight out of a halcyon painting. Lush grass carpeted the ground with flower bushes and hedges fencing the area. A bird bath was to his left and butterflies romped about. There were others like him, only with nurses pushing them around. An elderly group was playing a game of mahjong and there were a few younger patients who just sat on the benches, enjoying the crisp, spring air.  
  


Izaya took a deep breath, letting the sun warm through his chest and lungs. It was good for a moment; this ephemeral feel of sweet repose. But it soured when he opened his eyes. And he realized he hated this place. He hated this dream. He hated that he was stuck to this chair. He hated that he was too scared to uncover his legs and see what they’d become.  
  


He pushed himself forward again, further down the walkway, toward the archway full of vines and foliage at the end – hopeful it was the portal that would take him from this wretched reality. But the only thing awaiting him there was a materializing silhouette. A tall, lean figure with a nonchalant stance. He slowed within mere feet of it when he saw the blond hair and blue-tinted shades. The bartender suit. His heart thrashed against his ribs. No. Why did his dreams have to be so cruel?  
  


He rolled back, pivoted so sharply one of the wheels tipped off the ground. His arms pumped at the wheels with all the urgency and desperation slowly etching panic on his face.  
  


“Izaya.” That deep, lethal voice sounded too close at his ear.  
  


“Stay away from me! Get away!” He screamed when his wheelchair jerked to a halt, wheels stubborn beneath his palms bruising against the rough rubber. Adrenaline rushing through him with the force of a burst pipe, he launched himself from his chair, confident his legs wouldn’t fail him. That they would carry him far away from the monster at his back. But there was no first step. His legs crumpled beneath him. His arms and chest hit the smooth cement with a loud snap punching the breath from his lungs.  
  


“Izaya, calm down.”  
  


That voice, so gritty and low. Threatening. Fatal. _Paralyzing._ Izaya crawled frantically, gasping and terrified. Shame couldn’t restrain his loud cry for help. His eyes appealed to everyone around him. _Don’t let him take my hands from me, too._ His throat snagged on a barbed sob. He wanted this dream to end. He squeezed his eyes shut again and again, wishful that the scenery would morph to something else. Tears bittered his tongue.  
  


“Somebody please—!”  
  


He struggled to breathe against a winding chest; it was as if his heart had broken itself from his ribcage, splintering at the bottom of his stomach. And then everything went black. Was the dream finally ending? Would he be transported to a less horrific dimension of his brain? He didn’t care what it was. As long as it didn’t bring him back to this torment.  
  


Hell wasn’t other people, had never been. Hell was here and Izaya had found it within himself.  
  


***  
  


The dream wasn’t over.  
  


His consciousness returned with that damning awareness. It probably would never end. His entire body was sore with the feeling of sinking lead. He winced with the effort to move the dead iron weight of his arms. The only things that shifted with minimal pain were his eyelids, slitted enough to give him a view of the ceiling cast in blue-greenish fluorescence.   
  


“Are you awake?”  
  


Izaya’s heart slammed in his chest. Why has he still stuck in this dream? Was there some stubborn detail his brain wanted him to acknowledge? He squeezed his eyes shut again when the figure to the right of his vision drew close.  
  


“Izaya, open your eyes.”  
  


The raven head was not going to listen. If this was a dream, then all he had to do was wait it out ‘til the colors and shapes bled away into something else. But his mind was fettered to the thick, deep voice calling out to him. It moved over his bones with a dangerous frisson that had been, at one point in the past, exhilarating.  
  


His acquiescence was a timid balking. Amber eyes peered down at him, absent the shades from his face. Within them were so many unbidden memories Izaya wished were reduced to cinders and smoke. He opened his mouth, ready to catapult an insult. But the words never caught up to his tongue.  
  


“I’m not gonna hurt you.” Shizuo slipped into the chair he dragged close to Izaya’s bedside.  
  


“Shizu-chan,” his voice bruised on the rock pushing its way up his throat. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to live without me. If you weren’t such a gorilla, we could still be having fun in Ikebukuro.”  
  


The blond was so quiet, looking over Izaya so intently that the raven head clutched at the sheets covering him, wishing he could hide himself from the revealing light of the other’s eyes. “How dull is it now? Will you finally admit that I gave your life meaning?”  
  


“All you did was cause me trouble,” Shizuo murmured.  
  


“Not enough that you’re here with that disgusting look on your face, Shizu-chan. You— stop looking at me like that.” His voice scratched rough with such venom, Izaya wanted to recoil within himself. No, this wasn’t how he was supposed to react. He should be laughing, mocking Shizuo’s miserable and penitent disposition. And he did manage a snort; a harsh chuckle of derision as his eyes finally locked with the protozoan’s.  
  


“Don’t tell me a wild dog like you actually feels bad. Did you come here to cry and apologize about how shitty you feel? Will you do something that will make my—” His voice cracked. Shizuo’s eyes held a flicker that matched what roiled deep inside Izaya. His chin trembled and he turned away. “It would be better if you came here to laugh at me, Shizu-chan. Or finish what you started.”  
  


“I did finish it.”  
  


“No. No you didn’t.” His head whipped back to Shizuo, “Because if you did then why am I like this? Why aren’t I dead? You should have just killed me! It would have been better to crush my throat, because every day I want to die, Shizu-chan! Waking up like this, stuck in a fucking chair.” He didn’t care how violently his voice shook, or what he looked like glaring furiously through the burn of tears. “I never thought you could be this cruel. I hated you because you were unpredictable, but I see now you’re really just a fucking monster.”  
  


“Izaya…”  
  


“I said stop looking at me like that!” Izaya grabbed the humidifier by his bed, launching it with all his strength, jerking the plug from the wall. But it bounced off the protozoan’s shoulder and crashed to the floor instead.  
  


A nurse rushed in. A different woman from the lady earlier. More petite and fresh-faced; frantic bug-eyes glancing between the two males and seeing nothing amiss that indicated violence.  
  


“Is…are you alright, Orihara-san?”  
  


Izaya knew she didn’t expect him to answer, surprising even himself with the crescendo of his yell at her to get out. Like a frightened mouse, she scampered from the room and his ears filled with the harshness of his hostile breathing punctuated by a ragged and mirthless laugh.  
  


“Is this why you came, Shizu-chan? You should be laughing. It’s funny, right? That I’m this helpless and can’t even get up without someone holding me.”  
  


Shizuo didn’t return his wild grin, “Even like this, you don’t want to be honest.”  
  


Scarlet eyes sliced over to the blond, “What are you talking about now?” His tone was void of its earlier hysteria, dipping to a gravelly annoyance.  
  


“I didn’t come here to laugh at you,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. Izaya had always hated that ugly blond. Shizuo before the cheap hair dye had been a more tolerable eyesore. Back then, he’d had thick chestnut hair with wild cowlicks. “I don’t even know why I did.”  
  


Izaya rolled his eyes, “Unsurprising. You have nothing but dry bones for brains anyway.”  
  


Shizuo didn’t rise to the bait.  
  


“Really, it would’ve been better if you’d come here to hurt me more.”  
  


“I’m not sadistic.”  
  


“Oooh, someone’s been reading the dictionary.”  
  


“Izaya,” the blond warned.  
  


The raven head looked away, resting his head back on the pillows. The silence prodded into his side like a sharp elbow, peeled at his brain with unrelenting vengeance. He fidgeted, wringing the sheets this way and that between his fingers. And when he finally chanced a look at Shizuo, Shizuo was looking at his legs then slowly lifted his eyes.  
  


Neither looked away. Izaya’s fingers stilled beneath the fabric. He was almost afraid to swallow, unwilling to hear each wet decibel in the amplified quietness. But his tongue did dart nervously over dry lips.  
  


“Izaya—”  
  


“Shizu-chan—”  
  


Both blinked at each other with mirrored expectancy. Izaya didn’t like this strange feeling between them, as if a fissure was crumbling wide, ready to consume them together.  
  


“You’re right,” Shizuo finally spoke up, “I didn’t think this through and I don’t care. Ikebukuro is better without you. My life is a lot calmer.” As calm as it could be without the constant upheaval Izaya had brought it. He didn’t have to evade cops anymore. Gangsters weren’t challenging him as much. It wasn’t as if violence didn’t still follow him, it was only more tolerable. “I like things the way they are.”  
  


“Yet this is how you repay my kindness for leaving. You really have to work on your lack of good sense, Shizu-chan.”  
  


“But…” Shizuo grated on through clenched teeth, “I can’t get you out of my head.” He was looking down now, purposely avoiding the flea’s widening eyes. “I’m seeing you in places you never are. Your stupid fucking voice…I keep hearing it in my head like a cat mewling and scratching about.” Izaya blinked at that analogy. “I’m still chasing you. You aren’t there, but…I’m still chasing you.” Izaya didn’t expect to feel scorched by Shizuo’s gaze, but it burned through him with a feral determination to find an answer, almost taking his voice with it.  
  


“I told you, Shizu-chan. You can’t get rid of me. You always failed to kill me. All you had were threats.”  
  


“You failed to kill me, too, Izaya.”  
  


The raven head shrugged, “I’m not a heartless monster like you, even though your life doesn’t matter to me, and everyone would have celebrated your death.” He spoke more to himself than to the blond glaring at him, “I would’ve done the world a favor.”  
  


“So why didn’t you do it?”  
  


Izaya sighed aloud, voice dragging with exaggerated frustration, “I liked you better when you didn’t use your words, Shizu-chan.”  
  


“I’m not a fucking monkey,” Shizuo retorted, fists clenching on his knees. Izaya’s breath caught at the motion, seeing the strong wiring of veins from his forearms to his elbows where his white sleeves were rolled. It was only when the threat of violence didn’t come, that he was able to breathe out coolly.  
  


“What do you want me to say then, Shizu-chan? I could have killed you, we both could have killed each other a long time ago. You’re still miserable. And I’m…stuck in this fucking nightmare. I keep hoping I’ll wake up and everything will go back to normal. But this isn’t a dream, is it?” He stared down at his open palms, the separate lines without convergence.  
  


Some palm-reader had told him that meant his life would be a constant chain reaction of uncertainty and chaos. The part that had made Izaya laugh back then was her prediction that something would be taken away from him that he wouldn’t get back.  
  


Even if he’d taken her seriously, would he have done things differently? He curled his fingers back into his palm, “You ruined my legs, Shizu-chan. I wish I could plunge a knife deep in your chest, and watch you bleed out and die. But even then, I’m pretty sure you would just walk around with a gaping hole in your chest. Because that’s what you are, a freak that can’t die.”  
  


Izaya didn’t have his knives, but he sharpened each insult to tear at Shizuo’s conscience. And by the way the protozoan flinched, expression a grim shadow of consternation, Izaya was sure it smarted. But the satisfaction wasn’t the same; he wanted to see the bruises, the glisten of crimson seeping from each deep wound.  
  


“You took my freedom from me, and now you’re here trying to make sense of your fucking misery? Are you going to get me new legs?” Izaya scoffed crudely, shaking his head while pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not that you could afford prosthetics on your dead-end job.”  
  


“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Izaya.”  
  


“You shouldn’t have come at all! I left Ikebukuro as you wanted. To get away from you. You shouldn’t have found me. You _won._ So what the fuck do you want from me!?”  
  


Shizuo’s eyes dipped to the lower half of Izaya’s face, honey pooled within them, cooling the wild amber flicker of flames. But his mouth was still a weighted frown in the silence creeping back between them, its whisper a vacant echo of Shizuo’s own listlessness. The flea didn’t want his apologies and truly, Shizuo wasn’t sorry for what he’d done. Izaya had kept pushing and pushing, and Shizuo had been determined to end their useless feud once and for all. So why? Why had he pestered Shinra for Izaya’s location?  
  


Why had he convinced himself that he had to see Izaya one more time? Why hadn’t the peace in his life settled the way it should have after he’d gotten rid of the pesky parasite? The disconnect made him want to break something until it all made sense. Because answers were supposed to follow in the aftermath of chaos. And in Shizuo’s mind, this was where he should’ve found what he needed, because had all began and ended with Izaya. And yet…  
  


“Look, Izaya-”  
  


The door rolled open and Izaya had never felt so much relief, sucking in a deep breath like a man who’d been drowning. The portly nurse from earlier looked to Shizuo with an apologetic smile veiled by her mask.  
  


“I’m sorry, Heiwajima-san. Visiting hours are over now.”  
  


The blond lowered his gaze and after a few seconds, he got up and moved the chair back to its original position. He didn’t look back and ducked his head in a short bow to the nurse. She glanced after him then turned back to Izaya."  
  


“Are you ready for your dinner?”  
  


Izaya nodded slow – as if it mattered whether or not he wanted it. Did anything really matter now? Everything that had made Izaya who he was had been stripped and reduced to the sterility of this room. And now, there was no ignoring it or trying to deny it. The nurse disappeared for a moment, returning with a tray of food rich with healthy color. But Izaya felt no desire to eat, only pushing the food around after she adjusted his bed so he could eat comfortably.  
  


Shizu-chan was too confusing. A mindless beast dragging others into his madness. A madness Izaya had always willingly engaged for the euphoric thrill. But then Shizu-chan took his legs from him and that night, an unspoken understanding had been crushed. For the first time, Izaya had felt true fear like a visceral evisceration he’d never recovered from. And he’d realized then that he had not been to Shizu-chan, what Shizu-chan had been to him.  
  


Perhaps he’d been too confident in the assumption that there’d been another reason Shizu-chan had always failed to do the worst in all those years. Because it hadn’t been an addiction. Hadn’t been some complex, dysfunctional connection or codependence. The protozoan’s pea-brain wasn’t even able to understand such things. Izaya chuckled drily to himself. He should’ve pushed Shizu-chan to think harder and let his brain collapse from a stress-induced hemorrhage. But not even that would’ve been enough for what Shizu-chan had done to him.  
  


Nothing would ever be enough to forgive the pain Shizu-chan had left him to suffer through on his own.  
  


***


End file.
